Lines of Battle
by justaminuet
Summary: He had left her. Told her to leave. But, it's more difficult to say goodbye the second time around. Especially when you didn't mean it the first time. Yukimura x Kunoichi.
1. The Word's You've Borrowed

_Disclaimer:_ Warriors Orochi/Musou Orochi is owned and copywriter by KOEI, and I'm making no profit from this. I promise to return their characters in at least near mint condition.

_Author's Notes:_ Just some drabbles pulled together based on 31 Days' September themes, because I love this game, I love these two characters, and I'm eternally bitter that they had absolutely no interaction or unique dialogue during the game. They deserved some. So, I'll give it to them.

**The Words You've Borrowed**

In a way, the chaos of the situation seemed like a good thing to her. She had a fresh start, with new people surrounding her. She could pretend her past didn't exist; she had always been good at that.

On Sun Ce's orders, she had accompanied a group of soldiers to help a faction of the Zhao Yun army that had been cut off. It was supposed to be a fun fight. A challenge. Something that she thrived on.

He wasn't supposed to appear before her.

He wasn't supposed to have bruises and cuts, and broken armor. Wasn't supposed to look up at her with surprise, and then have a slow, but grateful smile cross his face.

He wasn't supposed to shakily get back on his feet (wasn't supposed to ever not be on his feet), and ask her to fight with him. Their fighting days were over. He'd made it so. He had told her that he wanted to go it alone, that she was in his way. And she'd told him,

"We make such a good team, though, don't you think?"

Except those words were coming out of his mouth now, and she was of half a mind to stab him through for his gall.

But the enemy was closing in. And so instead, her kunai focused on them as he stood beside her (still shaky, still covered with his blood, and she would make them pay for that), and raised his spear.

They were still, she found out, a frightening team to come across.


	2. You Illustrate the Sun's True Candor

_Disclaimer:_ Warriors Orochi/Musou Orochi is owned and copywriter by KOEI, and I'm making no profit from this. I promise to return their characters in at least near mint condition.

_Author's Notes:_ Just some drabbles pulled together based on 31 Days' September themes, because I love this game, I love these two characters, and I'm eternally bitter that they had absolutely no interaction or unique dialogue during the game. They deserved some. So, I'll give it to them.

**You Illustrate the Sun's True Candor**

He'd been surprised when he saw her. Thought for a moment that he was seeing a ghost. But most ghosts don't place tiny fists on delicate hips, and start mouthing off to you while your life's blood is slowly draining from your body.

Partners again due to circumstances, and part of him dreaded it. She was so brash, so eager for the fight.

Part of him longed for it. When she fought she danced, and she was so _beautiful._

She was a kunoichi, had given up her real name (though in one vulnerable night when it seemed like death had been upon them, she'd told it to him), and swore to live in the darkness.

She was the sun, though. Hot, fierce, and burning. She'd burn out, sooner or later. Become a supernova, and explode.

And he realized, while she helped drag his beaten body back to her base camp, that if he had half the fire she did, he probably wouldn't have needed her help in the first place.


	3. I Carry Your Heart

_Disclaimer:_ Warriors Orochi/Musou Orochi is owned and copywriter by KOEI, and I'm making no profit from this. I promise to return their characters in at least near mint condition.

_Author's Notes:_ Just some drabbles pulled together based on 31 Days' September themes, because I love this game, I love these two characters, and I'm eternally bitter that they had absolutely no interaction or unique dialogue during the game. They deserved some. So, I'll give it to them.

**I Carry Your Heart (I Carry It In My Heart)**

"I don't care about you anymore."

She told that to him in a matter-of-fact tone of voice that didn't suit her, at all. And then much more to her personality, she stuck her tongue out, and walked away.

It stung, he realized. It was his own fault, of course, but it hurt nonetheless.

Still, as she turned to speak to someone from her new army (who was that? was she close to him?), he couldn't help but think,

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Come back. You don't understand._

Yet, all he said was,

"Well, good luck to you."


	4. The Great Bewildering City You Live In

_Disclaimer:_ Warriors Orochi/Musou Orochi is owned and copywriter by KOEI, and I'm making no profit from this. I promise to return their characters in at least near mint condition.

_Author's Notes:_ Just some drabbles pulled together based on 31 Days' September themes, because I love this game, I love these two characters, and I'm eternally bitter that they had absolutely no interaction or unique dialogue during the game. They deserved some. So, I'll give it to them.

**The Great Bewildering City that You Live In**

In any war, alliances are formed. Battles create some strange bedfellows indeed, and while Wu and Shu's viewpoints differed, their goal was the same.

Sun Ce had sent out a few troops to Shu to solidify the partnership. Reluctantly, she'd been among them. She had voiced her complaints (loudly, with as much whining as possible in the hopes that sheer annoyance would get her what she wanted), but in the end the Little Conqueror got his way.

The main base camp of Shu, it turned out, was nothing like she expected. It was calm, almost peaceful. The tents set up perfectly in a row, and everyone talked in low, even tones. It was so serene, that one would have a hard time believing it to be a camp made of warriors, and not of civilians or even scholars.

It was quiet. Far too quiet for an army camp to be. Where was the spirit, the fight?

So, how could anyone blame her for storming in and shouting at the top of her lungs, "Yo! How's it going?"

Ranmaru had later said it was a testament to her bravery (and maybe her thick-headedness) that she didn't even flinch when half the camp looked up and glared at her with disgust. Instead, she plastered on a smile and waved.

"Kunoichi."

The smile disappeared then, and she turned to curtly reply, "Yukimura."

No more "lord" for him. He'd lost that privilege.

He smiled anyway. No armor on now, just loose pants and a tunic (and bandages, so many bandages that it made her heart hurt, and dammit she wasn't supposed to care). He looked like he belonged in this place, with its tranquil atmosphere, and weak looking soldiers. Like he was never meant to be in the middle of a war, next to her with a fire in his eyes and a passion in his voice.

Why did he look like he couldn't fight anymore like he used to? Was that drive gone? What had happened to him after she'd left? It was almost like being in Shu had taken what had made him so attractive, and thrown it aside.

She frowned. Pointedly, she told him, "This place sucks."


	5. You're the Miss that Misses

_Disclaimer:_ Warriors Orochi/Musou Orochi is owned and copywriter by KOEI, and I'm making no profit from this. I promise to return their characters in at least near mint condition.

_Author's Notes:_ Just some drabbles pulled together based on 31 Days' September themes, because I love this game, I love these two characters, and I'm eternally bitter that they had absolutely no interaction or unique dialogue during the game. They deserved some. So, I'll give it to them.

**You're the Miss that Misses  
**  
She wasn't like the other women in the camp. Sure, Xing Cai, Ginchiyo, Zhu Rong, and Yue Ying were all capable fighters, and more than a match for many men. But, none of them had her spunk. Her mischievous nature.

Xing Cai acted old for her age, focused on doing what was best for her people. Ginchiyo was proud, but not easily amused. Zhu Rong was outspoken, but spent most of her time bullying her husband, and almost had a motherly way about her towards the younger officers. Yue Ying was brilliant and stoic.

And Kunoichi... Kunoichi was a wild card. She was kinetic; it was difficult to keep track of her at all times, though he had learned to do it after all they'd been through. She was social to the point of scandalous. She didn't seem to notice (or, more likely, didn't seem to care) that the other women scowled at her disapprovingly when she talked to the men.

On the contrary, Kunoichi didn't seem at all hostile towards the women who obviously weren't thrilled with her company. She would instead smile and laugh at or with them, as friendly as one could be. If anything negative was said to her, she let it roll off her back like water would a duck's.

And, as friendly as she was with the women, she was friendlier with the men. Flirtatious, even. It seemed to him that she got the most enjoyment with seeing just how red could make Zhao Yun in under five minutes.

But, of course, the men didn't quite know what to make of her, either. As flirty as she was, it was all words. If someone dared to touch her, they'd quickly find themselves with their backs firmly against the ground, and the air knocked out of their lungs.

"You look with your hands, not your eyes," she would tsk, wagging a finger and winking.

Soon, the men became wary of her. No warrior worth their salt wants to admit they were taken out by a girl in a silly hat, even one that was trained in the martial arts. Attracted to her for her looks, but still nervous at her unpredictability.

She didn't fit in anywhere then. But, she kept on going as if she didn't notice, or at least, didn't worry over it.

But he could tell it bothered her during meals when she sat alone, up high in a tree limb so no one would see. He would watch her when she thought no one was looking, and feel a twinge of sadness when her lips would pout or frown.

Once, she nearly fell off the branch when the camp had burst into laughter over something Magoichi had said. He watched as she strained to figure out what was so funny, but it was impossible from her vantage. Her face crumpled a bit, and she went back to her meal with almost no enthusiasm.

And he couldn't take it anymore, because it just seemed so _wrong_that she was sad.

So, he walked over to the tree she was perched in, and sat at the base of it with his own dinner. A minute later, a half eaten piece of bread hit him square on the top of the head.

"Go away!" she declared.

"After I'm finished," he said, patiently.

"No. Now!"

"Why?"

"Because... Because you're blocking my view!"

He smirked. "Of the grass?"

"...Yes. That's my favorite patch of grass, you know."

He moved over a little. "There. Better?"

There was silence for a moment, then a long, annoyed sigh. With a small rustle of leaves and a light thud, she was next to him. She said nothing, but began to eat while making it a point not to look at him. He gave her a smile in return.

She didn't fit in with the women. She didn't fit in with the men. But she had always fit in with him.


	6. Used to Your Streets

_Disclaimer:_ Warriors Orochi/Musou Orochi is owned and copywriter by KOEI, and I'm making no profit from this. I promise to return their characters in at least near mint condition.

_Author's Notes:_ Just some ficlets pulled together based on 31 Days' September themes, because I love this game, I love these two characters, and I'm eternally bitter that they had absolutely no interaction or unique dialogue during the game. They deserved some. So, I'll give it to them. Please note that "ficlet" means, "a story of less than a 1,000 words." So, no big chapters. Sorry. Hope you enjoy them all the same.

**Used to Your Streets**

She was beginning to understand the soldiers of the Shu camp more with each passing day. Still, she didn't agree with many of their opinions (finding virtue through warfare was a hilarious concept to her, and she bit her lip bloody to stop herself from snickering a few times), but she thought that she could respect them for their beliefs. 

Kunoichi could at the very least, as she watched Yukimura re-wrap a healing wound on his arm, understand their desire to find Liu Bei. Truthfully, deep down inside her where she hid desires so secret she wasn't aware of them herself, she'd wanted to find her lord, too.

It was just that, now that she found him again, she didn't know what to do.


	7. You Look a Little Bit Older

_Disclaimer:_ Warriors Orochi/Musou Orochi is owned and copywriter by KOEI, and I'm making no profit from this. I promise to return their characters in at least near mint condition.

_Author's Notes:_ Just some ficlets pulled together based on 31 Days' September themes, because I love this game, I love these two characters, and I'm eternally bitter that they had absolutely no interaction or unique dialogue during the game. They deserved some. So, I'll give it to them. Please note that "ficlet" means, "a story of less than a 1,000 words." So, no big chapters. Sorry. Hope you enjoy them all the same.

**You Look a Little Bit Older, a Little Bit Colder**

Yukimura noticed it the first time he caught Kunoichi sparring with a soldier.

Those couple years he had known her, she'd always smiled on the battlefield. Even in the most desperate of situations, she seemed to be enjoying herself.

And for the most part, she looked no different now. Except, there were moments where her sparring partner got just a little too close to hitting her, and when that happened her smile changed to a frown, and her face darkened. She'd block or counter attack then, and the playful grin would be back as if it were never gone.

She was, in her own way, more serious in her fighting.

It was unsettling, he realized. He knew it was only a small change; she still enjoyed the battle. But still, she was not supposed to be the serious one. He was. That's how it always was. He was the stone faced, determined warrior, and she was smiling, playful ninja. They'd destroyed _armies_ by simply being that.

He wondered briefly why she had changed. And then she looked at him, her countenance changing to a deep frown, and she hit her partner square on the jaw with one solid kick, sending him flying.

And Yukimura wondered no more.


	8. Dovetailed Solution to Your Heart

_Disclaimer:_ Warriors Orochi/Musou Orochi is owned and copywriter by KOEI, and I'm making no profit from this. I promise to return their characters in at least near mint condition.

_Author's Notes:_ Just some ficlets pulled together based on 31 Days' September themes, because I love this game, I love these two characters, and I'm eternally bitter that they had absolutely no interaction or unique dialogue during the game. They deserved some. So, I'll give it to them. Please note that "ficlet" means, "a story of less than a 1,000 words." So, no big chapters. Sorry. Hope you enjoy them all the same.

**Dovetailed Solution of Your Heart**

Fight together, was Zhao Yun's recommendation. As soon as Yukimura was able to fight again.

Both protested, for different reasons.

"I don't think our styles compliment each other on the battlefield," had been Yukimura's excuse.

"Really?" Zhao Yun hadn't been convinced for a second. "Well, I've heard that the two of you are quite devastating together."

"I hate his guts," had been Kunoichi's far blunter approach.

Zhao Yun, who normally had the patience of a saint, had finally had enough pressure on him from all the turmoil going on around him to actually make him get angry. Angry for Zhao Yun, it turned out, was a flatly spoken, "Get over it."

She had looked at Yukimura and scowled. He had looked at Kunoichi and shrugged. And that was that. Partners.

During that meeting, Zhao Yun was the only one who left smiling 


	9. You're the Model of a Charmless Man

_Disclaimer:_ Warriors Orochi/Musou Orochi is owned and copywriter by KOEI, and I'm making no profit from this. I promise to return their characters in at least near mint condition.

_Author's Notes:_ Just some ficlets pulled together based on 31 Days' September themes, because I love this game, I love these two characters, and I'm eternally bitter that they had absolutely no interaction or unique dialogue during the game. They deserved some. So, I'll give it to them. Please note that "ficlet" means, "a story of less than a 1,000 words." So, no big chapters. Sorry. Hope you enjoy them all the same.

**You're the Model of a Charmless Man  
**

"Your left swing is a little weak," Yukimura said, as he watched her practice on her own.

Kunoichi's response was a well aimed shuriken, and he counted himself lucky that he was healed enough to dodge it. Instead of being angry though, he mused over where she hid the tiny blades. He didn't ask, since he'd never gotten the answer when they were still on good terms. He doubted he'd get an answer now, at least, not an answer that wouldn't involve him receiving puncture wounds.

"Honestly," she rolled her eyes. "You're a rude jerk."

"I was only trying to help," he replied.

He said it so straightly that she believed him. However, it didn't change her opinion.

"You really suck at being a gentleman, ya know that?" she told him. "I bet you wouldn't know how to treat a lady if your life depended on it."

"I thought you wanted to be treated like a warrior," he said, leaning back against the tree he'd been resting next to.

"I'm a girl, too!" she cried, hands on her hips. "Every girl wants to be treated like a girl!"

"Not Ginchiyo," he responded, smiling slightly.

Her nostrils flared. "She doesn't count. She's a freak. And you really are hopeless."

She was back to her practicing then, only this time with much more determination. Each kick and swing were perfectly timed, and he silently marveled at the way she moved.

With one hard jab to the air, her hat fell off, fluttering to the ground beside her. Silly as it was, she rather liked it, and didn't really want it to pick up more dirt than it had to. Sighing, Kunoichi bent down to pick it up.

But Yukimura had beat her to it. There he knelt, brushing off her hat with care, and giving one tassel on it a playful flick, before offering it to her with a kind smile.

"Your hat, my lady," he said, still kneeling, still smiling.

She glared at him, trying to remain angry. He was looking at her benignly, holding her hat to her like the perfect gentleman. With any other man, she'd assume the action was done purely to spite her words. With Yukimura, it was always so hard to tell; everything he did tended to have sincerity behind it.

...Like how he had _sincerely_ told her to leave him all those months back.

And that thought was enough to remind her he wasn't nearly the charmer he presented himself as being.


	10. You Can Never be Old

_Disclaimer:_ Warriors Orochi/Musou Orochi is owned and copywriter by KOEI, and I'm making no profit from this. I promise to return their characters in at least near mint condition.

_Author's Notes:_ Just some ficlets pulled together based on 31 Days' September themes, because I love this game, I love these two characters, and I'm eternally bitter that they had absolutely no interaction or unique dialogue during the game. They deserved some. So, I'll give it to them. Please note that "ficlet" means, "a story of less than a 1,000 words." So, no big chapters. Sorry. Hope you enjoy them all the same.

**To Me, My Fair Friend, You Can Never be Old  
**

Birthdays come and go. Being in the middle of a great war doesn't change that.

The people in the Shu camp would usually handle such occasions with a surprising amount of fanfare. Ranmaru had suggested that they did it to help keep morale up. Kunoichi thought that idea made the most sense, but still didn't understand the entire concept of it. She'd never been one for birthdays.

Then again, she'd never been one for dealing with any part of her past. She didn't even share such information with people she met and knew. It was much easier just to pretend things like families and events didn't exist.

So, it came as a surprise to her that one day Xing Cai handed her a bracelet. It was made of dark jade, and the young girl had explained that the stone was used all the time by Shu artisans.

When Kunoichi had asked why she was receiving such a trinket, Xing Cai had shrugged.

"I don't know, to be honest," she admitted. "Lord Yukimura told me to give it to you. That you'd understand."

Kunoichi nearly threw the piece of jewelry across the camp.

But she thought about it a little longer, her fingers lacing the jade beads around them. It dawned on her suddenly what day it was, and she almost broke the delicate gift she held in a tight grip. She wondered how she had managed to forget while he remembered. She also wondered why she had ever told him to begin with.

She looked down at the bracelet, and frowned. It was beautiful, and she probably would've accepted it had it been given by another person. Any other person but _him._

When she confronted him on it, held the gift out to him and demanded that he take it back, his response was a one shoulder shrug.

"It's just a bracelet I found," Yukimura said, as he slowly placed his armguards on. He flexed his arm to test the weight. Almost healed now. "I thought you'd like it."

"Well, I don't want it," she huffed.

"You don't want it, but you do like it, right?" he asked, swinging one armor-covered leg experimentally.

"That's not the point," she told him, glowering.

"So, you do like it? Good," he smiled, pleased.

"Are you listening to me?" she asked, frustrated at his apparent obliviousness. "I don't want birthday gifts from you!"

"Birthday?" He finally turned to her, feigned confusion on his face. "I don't know what you're talking about. I thought you were a kunoichi. You never get old. That is what you told me once, right?"

She hated having her words thrown back at her, especially by someone that she never thought would have the gall to do such a thing. Her mouth opened for her to say some witty retort, but all that came out was a flustered gasp.

Yukimura smiled genuinely in return. He walked over to her, taking the bracelet out of her hand. The bold movement made her blink, and kept her silent as he placed the gift on her right wrist.

"Jade's very precious around here," he told her, focused on her now bejeweled arm. "It symbolizes immortality, you know? I figured if there's one thing we could have on our side right now, it's that."

"What? You want a group of undead soldiers on your side?" she asked, flatly. "That's kinda creepy."

"No. I just... don't want _you_ to die," he said, so softly that the only reason she knew he said it and it wasn't her imagination was his warm breath brushing her face.

He looked her in the eyes then, and she realized a few things. One was that he was far closer to her than she'd originally thought. And two was that he still had the ability to hold her in place without ever actually touching her.

She surprised both of them when she left without another word.


End file.
